International jurist Navi Pillay, Chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on occupied Palestine and Israel, and an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), explained to Middle East Eye in a lengthy interview how the commission arrived at the conclusion that Israel is committing four of the five acts of genocide defined in international law. “It is the evidence that led us there,” she said.
“These acts are: killings of members of the group; causing serious physical or mental harm to members of the group; imposing conditions of life calculated to destroy the group; and preventing births within the group,” she added. “We did not find any evidence of the fifth underlying act in the Convention, which is the transfer of children from one group to another.”
“Having found that the underlying acts have been committed, we then analysed whether the Israeli authorities had the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza through any of these four underlying acts,” Pillay continued.
“Israel has consistently claimed that its military campaign in Gaza is conducted: one, in self-defense; two, to defeat Hamas; and three, to secure the release of Israeli hostages.
“As we assessed the pattern of conduct of the Israeli authorities and the security forces, we found that Israel’s claims were not justified.
“There did not appear to be any military objective in most of these acts.”
The acts included, among others, the intentional killing of an “unprecedented number” of Palestinians in Gaza; the systematic and widespread attacks on religious, cultural, and educational sites throughout Gaza; no intention to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians trapped in Gaza; the systematic and complete destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza; the widespread and systematic targeting of children is part of a strategy to destroy the biological continuity and future existence of the Palestinian group in Gaza.
“Taken together, these acts fit within the outcome of destruction of the Palestinian people. Taking all this into consideration, the Commission found that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be drawn based on the pattern of conduct of the Israeli authorities,” Pillay said.
“And so, the Commission concluded that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
